Day One
June 6th, 2005Having accepted the job, had the medical and vaccinations (typhoid, tetanus, diptheria, hepatitis A – yellow fever coming soon once they’ve overcome a national shortage of vaccine) and read the wonderfully Byzantine contract, it was time for a first day at work in Cambridge.
Arriving at BAS after 90 minutes of London traffic, the Blackwall Tunnel and the M11 was kind of strange – only four weeks before I’d been walking up to this building for an interview – but I was met by Chris, my new boss, and then shown down to Personnel where I had the usual briefing on the joys of first aid, emergency exits, fire wardens, teabreak times, clocking on to flexitime and how to find the shower room. Chris then took me round and round the building, introducing me to countless people whose names I now just about remember. Memorable highlights – the enthusiastic people in the MAGIC room (where they’re all map wizards: MAGIC is short for Mapping and Geographical Information Centre) who showed off some really lovely 3D models of the mountains around Rothera and gave me a couple of maps for my very own. The maps really are things of great beauty, and the skill in producing them is very evident.
We then discussed the training courses I’ll be doing. It looks like I’m doing one or two courses on Novell NetWare, one on climbing and rigging masts and towers (in Taunton), one on radio repair and maintenance, the Civil Aviation Authority’s Air-Ground Radio Operator’s course (and possibly also the Flight Information Safety Officer course, too), a marine radio operations course (GMDSS – which would allow me to pursue a career as a ship’s radio officer, if I wanted to) and a satellite systems course. All this plus the basic training that all Antarctic staff get: camping, climbing, abseiling and first aid.
I spent two days in Cambridge: the second day was taken up with learning a bit about metereology (in particular the various met. instruments on the base) and reading reports and documents relating to replacing the HF radio sets BAS uses, as the present ones are getting harder to get spares for.